Author: mlssz

Like most other posts/pages on this site, I am writing this for my own use but happy if others find it useful as well. My goal is to create a cheatsheet of sorts to Git. It’ll include some more meat on the bones (aka details about various commands) than one sometimes finds on other cheatsheets while at the same time leaving off a number of commands I don’t personally expect to be using.

Also wrote Java 9 for Programmers 4th Edition (5/2017, 3rd Edition: 3/2014), C++ How to Program 10th Edition (2/2016), Java How To Program (Early Objects) 11th Edition (6/2017, 10th: 2/2014), C for Programmers with an Introduction to C11 (4/2013) and so on.

Dino Esposito

Is an author I’ve personally been reading for years and whose work I appreciate not only for its take on specific technologies but also on concepts and patterns.

Also wrote Games, Design and Play (6/2016) and a book on Visual J# (8/2002).

Andrew Troelsen

Are you starting to see a pattern? Yes, I like when authors write on the same topic over a long period of time. While not always indicative it can be an indicator of the depth of their knowledge on the subject.

FreeBasic?

FreeBasic is a free and open source compiler that works with Windows, DOS, and Linux. It includes a QuickBasic emulation mode but also has many features of contemporary languages. The most recent version is 1.05 from Jan. 31, 2016.

I had an old QuickBasic game with .VGA files in it. What are .VGA files? Some sort of image format. Eventually I was able to determine that these were BSAVE files, but how to move them to something current?

Enter Deark (free and open source), a command-line utility that can decode files in one format and convert them into another.

I dropped deark.exe into the same folder as my QuickBasic game and the relevant .VGA files and entered the following command:

deark name_of_file.vga -opt bsave:fmt=wh16

The above command instructs deark to attempt to decode name_of_file.vga. But Deark can’t decode it without a little more help, which is why we have to define an option (-opt).